UMECUnited Mining Exploration Commission: A group of friends playing JumpGate-- "a MMORPG that launched smoothly, breaks from fantasy character setting, emphasizes PvP, and is the first persistent world space simulator that nobody talks about." ~Scorch

Hello everybody,
Today we're making our first announcement of the "Commissioned Pilot" program for Jumpgate. The Commissioned Pilot program is a premium service that we (Themis Group) are going to be offering to Jumpgate subscribers that allows a player to start the game at level 26. We're going to be charging a fee for this service of $19.95. More information on the Commissioned Pilot service is available at:

First, from monitoring churn and player feedback, we've learned that a percentage of new players who might otherwise be interested in Jumpgate are turned off by the new player experience. This program offers a way for players to jump right into the action, and we hope it will help us increase conversion of trials into subscribers.

Second, this premium service is going to increase our marketing budget for Jumpgate. We're formally committing to spending 66% of Themis Group's revenues from the Commissioned Pilot program on marketing Jumpgate. So if the program is even a modest success, that will give us a good budget to attract more players.

I know that some of you are going to be upset by this program, and for understandable reasons that you fear it will disrupt the community or lessen the value of the gameplay. In response, I will note that other games (such as UO) have had success with similar programs, and also add that given how rapidly an experienced player can get to level 26, we expect the actual disruption to be minimal. But we're going to be monitoring the program closely and if it starts damaging the community we will end it. All I ask is that you give us the benefit of the doubt and see how it works out.

We're hopeful that this program will be enticing to new and returning players and will help us build up the marketing funds for Jumpgate so we can grow this game to where it deserves to be.

Thx hicky!
Hmmmmmm...my first impression is that i'm just fine with that. *shrug* Thing is, it'll probably eliminate the need for NetDevil to make the n00b levels more appealing. (course, that's not me being cynical at all, seriously)

*shrug* BTW, i never did buy that, "oh, we'll have n00b tow pilots" crap from the elitist pricks anyways. (i always thought FM bugs with uberXP to be a big snore as far as hurting the "enjoyment of the levelling treadmill")

Won't affect the game one iota...Game sucks. Still sucks. any questions?

FYI, if i was still playing i'd certainly see this as a positive precedent. (even IF the NetDevil goons decided n00b = fixed, they'd still have the concept that it NEEDED fixing)

The flight model if pretty decent, the combat system is a good start, what it needs is a game and up to date graphics. When I say game there needs to be a point to the game and just as importantly the ability to have an impact on the game for a few days or weeks.

the real silver lining to commissioned pilots is the propaganda pro-PoD spindoctors use of "how will we help n00bs if /give is removed?" is now crippled...that was their best defense against removing /give.

The pilot account is edited manually. Experience is reset to 1 million, rank is reset to 26.

10 million credits are added to the account. This is enough for any of the three factions to get into any common fighter loadout they desire. Ships and equipment are not changed.

PR is increased to 120 in the home faction, if it is lower than 120, and to 60 in others. This will allow the pilot to purchase virtually any item they need.

If a medal is going to be awarded it will likely not 'look' like a medal so much as display that the account has used the service. Since this may not be necessary because duty hours will show the level of experience, whether or not it will be visible in the public stats is still being decided. (Leaning towards no visible medal at the moment)

As for griefing, we have banned players for griefing sprees in the past, and we will continue to do so in the future when warranted. When we do ban someone for bad behavior, all of their accounts are included, not just the account that did it.

The key to everything here is that all of this does not involve game code - this is something we want to do to allow us to devote more resources to advertising Jumpgate. All of this work, with the exception of a few announcements on JOSSH and the possible addition of a medal, is being done by Themis so as to disrupt the actual development work on Jumpgate as little as possible. Anything other than that is simply not feasable - the developers have more than enough work to do as it is.

old news, but still useful. besides, i was thinking about this while mourning the nerfage of MG's 3 week old "thou shalt not PoD in reg"